Maahum Chaudrey is Muslim and is worried what Trump plans for her community will be especially after getting campaigned on possibly forming a Muslim registry and banning Muslims from coming I to the country. Here she is interviewed Feb. 1 the Islamic Center in Pomona.

Maahum Chaudrey is Muslim and is worried what Trump plans for her community will be especially after getting campaigned on possibly forming a Muslim registry and banning Muslims from coming I to the country. Here she is interviewed on Wednesday, February 1, 2017 the Islamic Center in Pomona, Ca. (Micah Escamilla/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, SCNG)

Mahuum Chaudhry lives in Claremont and works in Hollywood. She is a practicing Muslim who is concerned about the travel bans the Trump administration has put into place. She said the policies have moved her to be more active in her community as well as fighting for the rights of others.

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I was born and raised in California, but my parents are originally from Pakistan, so I consider myself an American Pakistani.

I think currently, first and foremost, the travel ban is extremely concerning, so I’m going to go ahead and call it a Muslim ban because I do believe that’s really what it is.

It’s especially concerning because it’s overbroad, overreaching and I don’t think it’s accomplishing what it’s meant to accomplish. There are people who had valid visas to be in this country that were denied entry into this country, and it was extremely heartbreaking for me to see.

I had a friend of a friend who lived locally. She had gotten married. She’s originally from Somalia, or Sudan, I’m not sure, but her mom and her sister had gone back for her wedding, and they had a lot of difficulty getting back to the United States because of the travel ban. She just felt so incredibly guilty about it because they had gone for her wedding.

It’s extremely frustrating because I feel like currently, with the immigration process, the people that are here with valid visas who have permanent residence, they’ve already gone through a pretty extensive process to be in this country. After having gone through all of that just to be denied.

I feel like a lot of these people are extremely accomplished people who add a lot of value to America. They’re what America is about. I really do believe that immigrants from all over the world, not just the Middle East, but from any country, that’s what America is all about. Denying them in a way that the current president is claiming for security reasons — but it’s not really not accomplishing — that it’s just turning away people that we could really benefit from having in our country.

Since the travel ban has gone into effect, people come up to me, and the first thing they ask me — because I obviously look Muslim — they’ll ask me what’s your immigration status. I am a U.S. citizen, but I don’t feel safe having that status. I’m still worried. I’d like to think that it will offer me some protection but feel like mentally I’m preparing myself to know that it might not.

I’m pretty sure that statistics and numbers have shown the rise in not just Islamophobic hate crimes but hate crimes in general. Not just when he became president but when he was running as well. And it’s been extremely concerning. There were a lot of people that — after Trump got elected — felt like the racist attitudes that they had were OK and it was OK to express them and it was OK to say things that are not OK. That has been extremely difficult because we have a lot of people who have felt emboldened in their racist views since Trump has gotten elected, and I am close to San Bernardino, and I’m Muslim and I look Muslim. A combination of all of those things does make you hyper alert.

Initially I remember thinking I didn’t have faith in the system of checks and balances that I should have, and I think with the two Muslim bans being overturned, some of my faith in the government and the system was restored. But at the same time, I feel like I would be extremely naive to say it was fully restored.

In the Muslim faith, you have to have hope. As much as there have been some negative attacks, there have been some really amazing people that have reached out particularly after what happened in San Bernardino. I would go to the grocery store and I would just be wearing flip flops, not anything fancy and people would come up to me and say, “I love your shoes.” I chose to interpret that as that was their way to reach out to me to say you’re OK, we accept you, and you belong here. I’ve had people come up to me, strangers, who have said if there’s a Muslim registry, we’re Muslim too and we’re going to register, and it’s meant a lot because — I’m going to start crying — it’s not easy. It means a lot.

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